New SSN (09X vs 09VA) thread
- Thread starter ACuriousPLAFan
- Start date
The beam measure? I guess 12-13 meters
Sail measured from both the Bohai picture and the new JN picture seems to be around ~11m long which is basically about as long as your typical Virigina sail, it might be marginally thinner but due to the specific inclination of both pictures it is much harder to measure width accurately than length. Though it is an obvious improvement from previous Chinese designs with humongous sails that are nearly twice as long, rough measurements for 09IIIB yields ~19-20m for sail length while being wider.
Edit: The waterline seems quite high up for a fully doubled hulled like the Type 09IIIAs, along with a mix of 12m and 10m pressure hulls IMO hybrid hulled?
Edit: The waterline seems quite high up for a fully doubled hulled like the Type 09IIIAs, along with a mix of 12m and 10m pressure hulls IMO hybrid hulled?
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A single or hybrid hull submarine is what I expect for 09X/09VA (as well as 09V overall).
That said I'm not sure what the mix of 12m and 10m pressure hulls would make it more likely to be a hybrid hull, after all there's no reason to think 12m and 10m pressure hulls are for use on the same submarines. They could very well just be for a 09V (12m) and a 09IIIB (10m) respectively.
AFAIK, JN does not produce 09IIIBs no? Both diameter hulls were spotted there
Oh I thought you were referring to modules seen at Bohai.
If you're referring to what we saw in #139, I remain cautious if those are definitely pressure hull segments. Personally I haven't factored them into my assessment of 09X yet. (Heck even for most of Bohai's pressure hull modules I treat them with a bit of caution because we can never be sure what we are definitely looking at)
If those are pressure hull segments, and if they are representative of a pressure hull cap of one end, then it is plausible that the 11m diameter segment might be part of a hybrid hull part of one end of the hull, given hybrid hulls typically have one or two tapered "ends" being the more narrow segment while the bulk of the centre length of the hull is the single hull section. But if the 12m pressure hull cap is representative of one end, then it means at least one end has about the maximal hull diameter meaning only one "end" can be "hybrid".
(Unless they do something odd like a central segment which is hybrid/narrower, but typically that's only done in special mission submarines)
Feel free to do your own measurements, but I have attempted to do mine on these photos using various methods with google earth/maps, and have taken numerous points of land references on different dates. I have also tweaked the shadows and made my best attempt to remove them. The length came out at around 123m with pumpjet, but yet I am somewhat baffled by a figure of >14m beam. This was consistent whichever method I measured them. Would be great if someone else could also check this figure.
IMO, it's just the angle of the picture that elongates everything on the width axis, AFAIK other measurements were pretty consistent for 12-12.5m beam